Long road to recovery for Kingwood businesses flooded by...

1of12Nikole Davis poses for a portrait in the shell of Pretty Little Things boutique in the Kings Harbor mixed-use development on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018, in Kingwood. Davis' store took on six feet of water in the aftermath of Hurriane Harvey. Davis opened a pop-up shop, in nearby Atascocita, and expanded her online business to keep selling her merchandise while she rebuilds her store. ( Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff / Houston Chronicle

2of12Nikole Davis' Pretty Little Things boutique is shown in the Kings Harbor mixed-use development on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018, in Kingwood. Davis' store took on six feet of water in the aftermath of Hurriane Harvey. Davis opened a pop-up shop, in nearby Atascocita, and expanded her online business to keep selling her merchandise while she rebuilds her store. ( Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff / Houston Chronicle

3of12Nikole Davis, owner of Pretty Little Things boutique, works in her pop-up store on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018, in Atascocita. Davis' Kingwood store took on six feet of water in the aftermath of Hurriane Harvey. She opened a pop-up shop, in nearby Atascocita, and expanded her online business to keep selling her merchandise while she rebuilds her store. ( Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff / Houston Chronicle

4of12Nikole Davis, owner of Pretty Little Things boutique, works in her pop-up store on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018, in Atascocita. Davis' Kingwood store took on six feet of water in the aftermath of Hurriane Harvey. She opened a pop-up shop, in nearby Atascocita, and expanded her online business to keep selling her merchandise while she rebuilds her store. ( Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff / Houston Chronicle

6of12Amanda Villarreal, right, shops in Nikole Davis' Pretty Little Things pop-up store on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018, in Atascocita. Davis' Kingwood store took on six feet of water in the aftermath of Hurriane Harvey. She opened a pop-up shop, in nearby Atascocita, and expanded her online business to keep selling her merchandise while she rebuilds her store. ( Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff / Houston Chronicle

7of12Merchandise in Nikole Davis' Pretty Little Things pop-up store is shown on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018, in Atascocita. Davis' Kingwood store took on six feet of water in the aftermath of Hurriane Harvey. She opened a pop-up shop, in nearby Atascocita, and expanded her online business to keep selling her merchandise while she rebuilds her store. ( Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff / Houston Chronicle

8of12A drawing of Nikole Davis' Pretty Little Things boutique, along with a photo of the people who helped her clean up after Hurricane Harvey, is shown on the wall of her pop-up store on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018, in Atascocita. Davis' Kingwood store took on six feet of water in the aftermath of Hurriane Harvey. She opened a pop-up shop, in nearby Atascocita, and expanded her online business to keep selling her merchandise while she rebuilds her store. ( Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff / Houston Chronicle

9of12Nikole Davis, owner of Pretty Little Things boutique, works in her pop-up store on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018, in Atascocita. Davis' Kingwood store took on six feet of water in the aftermath of Hurriane Harvey. She opened a pop-up shop, in nearby Atascocita, and expanded her online business to keep selling her merchandise while she rebuilds her store. ( Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff / Houston Chronicle

10of12Merchandise in Nikole Davis' Pretty Little Things pop-up store is shown on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018, in Atascocita. Davis' Kingwood store took on six feet of water in the aftermath of Hurriane Harvey. She opened a pop-up shop, in nearby Atascocita, and expanded her online business to keep selling her merchandise while she rebuilds her store. ( Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff / Houston Chronicle

11of12Nikole Davis' Pretty Little Things boutique in the Kings Harbor mixed-use development remains under reconstruction on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018, in Kingwood. Davis' store took on six feet of water in the aftermath of Hurriane Harvey. Davis opened a pop-up shop, in nearby Atascocita, and expanded her online business to keep selling her merchandise while she rebuilds her store. ( Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff / Houston Chronicle

12of12Nikole Davis poses for a portrait in the shell of Pretty Little Things boutique in the Kings Harbor mixed-use development on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018, in Kingwood. Davis' store took on six feet of water in the aftermath of Hurriane Harvey. Davis opened a pop-up shop, in nearby Atascocita, and expanded her online business to keep selling her merchandise while she rebuilds her store. ( Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle )Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff / Houston Chronicle

Beyond the dust-streaked windows, past the empty patio, Lake Houston’s waves lapped against a wooden pier. Diners for nearly a decade had docked their motorboats there to enjoy plates of churrasco, ceviche and chorizo at Chimichurri’s South American Grill.

Perez and her husband, Ronald Perez, last year began planning a big party to celebrate Chimichurri’s 10th anniversary this April. But six months after Hurricane Harvey, all they hope to do is reopen their doors.

“We can’t wait to get back in,” Perez said, scanning the reconstruction progress.

In the aftermath of Harvey, retailers and restaurants across the Houston region have faced the difficult choice of rebuilding or walking away. Those tough decisions are now playing out in Kingwood, one of the hardest hit neighborhoods for local businesses.

Chimichurri’s is one of 266 storefront businesses in the Kingwood area that flooded during Harvey, according to the Lake Houston Area Chamber of Commerce, which has more than 900 members in the northeast Houston region.

Six months after Harvey, nearly two-thirds of flooded Kingwood-area businesses have reopened, and the local chamber forecasts that 83 percent will open their doors by the end of the year.

But for dozens of other small businesses, recovery is still months if not years away. Many retailers and restaurant owners like Perez have only just started to rebuild.

“Kingwood was hit hard by Harvey,” said Andrew Cárdenas, the chamber’s business recovery coordinator. “Businesses are struggling to come back.”

Chimichurri’s was one of the first tenants inside King’s Harbor, the first urban-style, mixed-use development in Kingwood and a predecessor to CityCentre in Houston. The 75,000-square-foot commercial, retail and dining destination is one of a few commercial properties fronting Lake Houston, and drew crowds of Kingwood families looking for a relaxing evening watching the sunset over the water.

“We’re always trying to create things that are unique and enhance communities,” said developer Jonathan Brinsden with Houston-based Midway Cos. “Here, the water was the attraction.”

The lakeside view drew the Perezes, who poured their life savings into the restaurant. Their family, including Perez’s parents, sister and aunt, got involved. They obsessed over every detail, upgrading lights, china, chairs and the patio area several times over the course of a decade.

The family and their 50 employees kept Chimichurri’s open all but three days of the year, closing only for Thanksgiving, Christmas and the Super Bowl. Patrons came from across the Kingwood area to experience the kind of fine dining one would expect closer to downtown Houston, Perez said.

“This is what we give to Kingwood,” she said.

It never crossed her mind that scenic Lake Houston, with its sunsets, boats and birds, would one day bring so much devastation.

Faced with unprecedented rainfall during Harvey, officials at the Lake Conroe dam upstream from Kingwood discharged billions of gallons of water into the San Jacinto River. The water gushed downstream into Lake Houston, eventually overflowing into King’s Harbor and the surrounding neighborhoods.

Ten out of 13 tenants in King’s Harbor — including Chimichurri’s — took on as much as six feet of water. The flooding overwhelmed grocery stores, strip malls and shopping centers more than a mile away from Lake Houston.

“In a million years, you couldn’t comprehend that could happen,” said Brinsden, who was rescued with his family from their Kingwood home by a Coast Guard boat.

The Perezes, who had evacuated their four-story brownstone catty-corner from Chimichurri’s as the lakewater rose, found another mess when they returned to their restaurant. Booths and chairs were upside down. The sofa in the foyer had floated to behind the bar. The heavy ice machine was turned sideways. Mud was everywhere.

“Everything we had worked for was gone,” Perez recalled, with tears in her eyes.

Felicia Cumby remembers surveying the damage to her children’s boutique, Dapper Darlings, across the way from Chimichurri’s. The Kingwood woman had opened her 1,200-square-foot store, which sold children’s clothes from newborn to 9 years old, less than two weeks before the storm. Her other business, an Edward Jones financial advisory firm a few miles away in Kingwood Town Center, also flooded.

After cleaning up the debris at her women’s fashion store, Pretty Little Things, Nikole Davis refused to come back for three months because it depressed her so much.

“Every time I would come, I would feel heavy and sad and heartbroken,” Davis said. “Within 24 hours, every material thing I had was gone.”

The biggest challenge now facing Harvey-ravaged businesses in King’s Harbor is finding the funding to carry on and rebuild, the chamber’s Cárdenas said. Most area businesses did not carry flood insurance, which complicates the recovery effort, he said.

“When you’re an entrepreneur, starting again from scratch is always hard,” Cárdenas said. “Just closing your business for one day is bad enough, but if you have to close for months without financial options, that becomes incredibly stressful.”

Davis, who had been saving up for her wedding and a downpayment on a house, diverted her savings to rebuilding Pretty Little Things. She leased a house and plans a more modest wedding.

Perez, who opened Chimichurri’s without incurring debt, took out a Small Business Administration loan to fund rebuilding efforts. She hopes to reopen by summer, but worries how much of an appetite there is for fine cuisine in a town filled with flood victims.

“You see disasters put pressure on businesses to do things they’ve never do before, like go online and buy more ads to market themselves,” Cárdenas said. “All of that will help their business in the long run.”

Three weeks after Harvey, Davis signed a lease in a vacant storefront in nearby Atascocita and opened a pop-up shop for Pretty Little Things where she sells seasonal clothes that had been ordered right before the hurricane hit. The Kingwood native put together the temporary store in a matter of days, using salvaged metal displays and tables from her King’s Harbor store.

“I didn’t want to sit still and wait,” Davis said. “I needed the revenue, but I also didn’t want to get lost in the storm. There are hard moments, but the pop-up shop has given me something to look forward to.”

As businesses rebuild, many stores and restaurants in Kingwood are paying homage to their Harvey experience. Some, like Pretty Little Things, plan photo displays. Others, like Dapper Darlings, are adding water-line plaques. H-E-B, Torchy’s Tacos and Mod Pizza have also added water lines to their stores as they have reopened.

“It’s a display of pride, kind of like a battle scar,” Cárdenas said, “and a measure of the confidence they have in the area.”

Perez has something else in mind. She intends to hang a piece of artwork above one of her tables where there used to be a decorative wall. Her husband found it at a hospitality convention a few months back, a large wall piece with brown squares, the color of the lake silt inside her restaurant after Harvey.